Once you sign up for your new energy plan, your local utility will be notified of the change and begin your service from the alternative supplier at the beginning of your next billing cycle. Upon starting your energy supply service, your utility company will include this charge on your energy bill and continue to charge for the delivery service portion of your bill. Why? Because although your supplier may offer you a competitive rate for electricity supply, your utility is still in charge of the infrastructure that delivers energy to your home – such as power lines and energy meters.

Utilities, or energy companies, in Maryland offer customers information to know how much they are spending on electric supply each month. Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., for example, provides a tool known as the Standard Offer Service, which shows customers how much they can expect to pay for energy supply each month. Current supply rates show that BGE customers will pay 8.225 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). ChooseEnergy.com, as of mid-May, offers a 36-month plan that could save 13 percent on that rate now.

To do so, we used five of the state’s largest electricity companies to explore six things you'll have to evaluate when you're comparing plans and providers: We’ll walk you through customer satisfaction scores, running the numbers on rates, and calculating the impact of different fees, discounts, and contract types. We'll weigh in on extra perks, like points, and green energy too.

When you decide to switch, and have got the ball rolling with your new supplier, you should settle any outstanding debts. If you have bills that are more than 28 days old, you might find that you can’t change supplier until you’ve paid them. But there are some exceptions to the 28 days – for example, if you are less than £200 in debt, then your switch could still go ahead as normal

Prepaid electric, or “pay as you go electricity” is a affordable choice for people with short term living arrangements as well as those wanting to eliminate light bills and need their lights on the same day. Prepaid electricity in Texas is rapidly growing in popularity. Thanks to smartphone apps, Texas college students are choosing to prepay for a fast, easy connection and payment. With smart meter technology, homeowners and renters can easily monitor, regulate and conserve their usage which saves money. Quick Electricity has energy plans to suit the customer preparing for an upcoming move, serving in the military, looking for green energy solutions, or simply wanting to take it month-to-month with no deposit. Don’t fit any of those molds? We can set you up to build your own energy plan!
We've pioneered our techniques and grown our expertise in the retail energy industry for more than a decade. With hundreds of thousands of customers and firm investor backing, we're a company you can count on. Spark Energy is also proud to be a publically traded company: our NASDAQ ticker is SPKE. Visit our investor relations page for more information.
There’s some smart money placing big bets on a rebound for oil. Blackstone Group LP BX, -5.27% President Hamilton “Tony” James said last month that the company was “scrambling” to invest up to $10 billion in energy companies, according to Bloomberg. Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman said during the company’s earnings call on Jan. 29 that the majority of Blackstone’s energy investments were “oil-price agnostic, including energy-transportation infrastructure where we have off-take agreements, merchant power, renewables and other types of energy-oriented investing.”
The local electric company is the utility – that’s the company who owns the infrastructure, including the poles and power lines that deliver electricity to your home. They are who you call if your power goes out or there's an emergency. But in almost every city in Texas, you must choose another company to supply that energy, called a Retail Electric Provider (REP). These REPs, like Spark Energy, allow you to choose electricity plans that offer competitive prices and plans to meet your needs.
But competition didn't necessarily end up cutting prices, according to the report. One contributing factor is confusion among customers as they try to choose among scores of retail electricity providers and the overwhelming variation of plans, leading many to just stick with familiar companies rather than look for better deals, according to the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power .
For over 10 years, CenStar Energy has been a leading electricity and natural gas supplier in New York, New Jersey, and Ohio. The company offers green plans, and has a range of options in shorter and longer end of the market. They offer competitive pricing in traditional and renewable energy products, and help you take control of your electricity and gas bills!
Consumers in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and Corpus Christi were promised bargains on electricity when the Texas Legislature deregulated the electricity market. But 16 years later they're still paying more for electricity than their counterparts in cities Texas lawmakers exempted from deregulation such as Austin and San Antonio, according to the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power which analyzed federal electricity pricing data.
Texas deregulated most of the state's electricity markets in 2002, a move aimed at lowering electricity costs by letting consumers choose their own electric power providers and their own plans. Some parts of Texas continued to be regulated, including those whose power is proved by municipally-owned utilities, electric cooperatives and investor-owned utilities that operate outside the state's primary power grid.
No. When you’ve chosen a new deal, your new supplier will handle the switching process. They’ll contact you to let you know what date you’ll be transferred over, and they’ll contact you around the switching date to ask for a meter reading. They’ll pass this on to your old supplier so they can send you a final bill. You don’t need to contact your old supplier, as the new supplier will handle everything for you.
Since that humble beginning, Ambit has welcomed over a million Customers and generated over $1.2 billion in revenue. Chris and Jere’s dream of creating the finest and most-respected retail energy provider in America has driven Ambit’s success. Read Ambit’s full story, and find out more about how you can be a part of this incredible and ongoing success story.
CenterPoint Intelligent Energy Solutions LLC, IES, which manages TrueCost, is not the same legal entity as CenterPoint Energy Resources Corp. (CERC) or CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric, LLC (CEHE), nor is IES regulated by the Railroad Commission of Texas or the Public Utility Commission of Texas. You do not have to buy products or services from IES in order to continue to receive quality regulated services from CERC or CEHE.
On the other hand, month-to-month variable rate (no-contract) plans don’t have cancellation fees. You won’t be penalized if you find a better deal elsewhere and want to make another switch. And, you won’t be stuck paying more than you should be if the market rate for electricity trends down. But, if it goes up, you’ll be paying more than your in-contract neighbors, and you’ll likely want to shop around again for a better deal.